“Red Eyes” has the distinction of being Tinkertown’s first official song. “Gabriella had the words and melody,” says Dean Fisher, the multi-instrumentalist half of a collaborative partnership that also includes classically trained vocalist Gabriella Lawrence. “As she sang it, I could imagine a glam-rock beat going along with it, and I added some chords that made sense.”
Bassist for the Juliana Hatfield Three and husband to Belly’s Tanya Donelly since 1996, Fisher is an esteemed veteran of the Boston music scene. He and Lawrence were already writing together in another band, the new-wave/power-pop Ghosts & Shadows. They quickly saw Tinkertown as a golden opportunity to explore more varied territory, from glam and hard rock to folk and even jazz.
“We realized pretty quickly that we had the ability and the desire to write a wide variety of songs together,” says Fisher. “It’s been an exciting journey—and it all started with ‘Red Eyes.’”
With its pulsing rhythm and hazy ’70s feel, “Red Eyes” is one of the more conventional tracks on Tinkertown’s debut LP, American Gothic, available June 21 on American Laundromat Records.
“I enjoyed playing with the meter a bit in the verses, so it moves a little differently than expected,” says Fisher. “It has a chorus that takes the dynamics down a bit, and we brought in some distorted guitars for the bridge to keep the energy up through the rest of the song.”
We’re proud to premiere Tinkertown’s “Red Eyes.”
—Hobart Rowland
